Chinese businessman builds private mountain lair on apartment block

A man who spent six years building a craggy complex of rooms, rocks, trees and
bushes on top of a 26-storey Beijing block has been asked to tear it down.

11:17AM BST 13 Aug 2013

A medicine mogul who created his own private mountain peak and luxury villa atop a high-rise apartment block in Beijing has been given 15 days by Chinese authorities to tear it down.

The craggy complex of rooms, rocks, trees and bushes looming over the 26-storey building has become the latest symbol of disregard for the law among the rich as well as the rampant practice of building illegal additions.

Angry neighbours say they've complained for years that the unauthorised, 74-square-metre mansion was damaging the building's structural integrity and its drainage system, but that local authorities failed to crack down.

Urban-management officials in the Haitian district of Beijing said on Tuesday that authorities would tear down the two-storey structure in 15 days unless the owner does so himself or presents evidence that it was legally built.

The villa's owner has been identified as the head of a traditional Chinese medicine business and former member of the district's political advisory body who resides on the building's 26th floor.